This is Not a Review

7/26/2019 This is Not a Review

1/6

For: Foxing

By: Lucas McEuen


2/6

This is not a review

Weave

Lioness, watch the breath from your lips leave into the shattering air. It cannot

move without your power. Your charm holds me down so I cannot move. The doves flew

away but still held in their talons remained a rotted semblance of the remains. You held

everything in me down and with not enough to be free I grew into it, taking the shape you

pointed to and not caring. You went until the cascades dried up and the thicket of your

hair untangled from my hands. We gave out. I dont know how to move on. I know you

wont.

The Magdalene

The chain of beads sat below the dark wood thick-framed portrait, sepia-grained.

No knots. The bedpost kept the beads from falling. They lay draped downward. A folded

pair of hands sat next to them. She couldnt move her eyes to the picture. It has been too

long but she sat by it every day. The sun continued to rise and fall across the frame. The

glare of light reflected into her eyes and her breath hitched. She sat silent until the sun

crept past and the entire room was light. A tangerine glow perched itself in the window.

She never looked.

Night Channels

He walked and kept a quick pace while looking backwards. Nothing followed

him. It was late and the moon was bright. He tripped over something in the tall grass and

when he disappeared beneath he heard something move near him. He looked at his feet

and his laces were caught on a protruding twig. He kept quiet. The rustling came nearer.

He heard the heartbeat in his ears. A deer jumped over him, and landed in the tall grass,


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towering over it. His antlers bowed in front of the moon. He ate silently as the boy tried

to slip away, anxious.

Laundered

The dew-frosted branches twinkled in the morning light. Leaves sat on the

branches, waiting for the wind to pick them up and take them away. With each shallow

gust they swayed and bent.

A bird rested on the branch, sitting between one large freshly yellowed leaf and

the spot from where it had just plucked a green, worm-holed leaf from the stem. It puffs

its chest feathers to swell. There are no other birds around and leaves fall around him. He

drops the leaf and spreads his soft wings to take perch on an empty branch, where other

birds join him.

Indica

The lone chimney sat stark against the daffodil-white snowfall. Trees swayed

softly together. The old mans chest slowly rose and fell in the silence of the day. Birds

passed silently. The smoke rose and drifted through the gentle valley. He stayed asleep

for most of the day, only waking a brief moment to itch his forehead. The fire inside

crackled and spit ash forward onto the mortar. On the walls were heads of many animals:

bears, squirrels, deer. Their glass eyes stared at each other throughout the day. They sat

hollow. The flame twinkled in their eyes when flames grew tall.

Winding cloth

Black boughs shook from the wind. Scattered leaves crossed the parkway path

and dirt picked over from the morning birdcall sat dark and overturned. Grass roots jutted

out. The calamity kept the animals, as they shook, frightened. Birds on wires sat watchful


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and birds in the trees squawked loudly. Some flew away, creating holes between the

branches, making the trees look like veins without a body. The sky rested a grey, almost

white color. The boy watched the birds up through the trees. He watched the tree fall,

with branches breaking on collapse. Tree after fell, slowly creaking as roots weakened.

Redwoods

In front of an innocent look he dropped down beneath the branches and landed in

the brown bark between the freshly planted, peach-colored flowers. His wings stunned

the boy for their richness was visual. The white eyes searched the ground for anything

lively. Nothing moved. He hopped for a while but flew away in fear of wasted search. As

he left his wing clipped a flower and a seed stuck between the feathers, nestled into him.

With each breath he felt the seed warm until he no longer noticed. When he landed again

the seed was gone from his feathers, lifeless.

Glass Coughs

The crescent-moon shape of his boot heel imprinted the wet sand. Its taupe color

and the wetness from the tidewater cast gentle reflections of the moon. The breeze carried

the smell from the water past him and into the town. He would make it back by morning,

before they would wake. Each step moved further and further from the shore, shifting

sand from thin and watery to thick and clumpy and grainy. The granules fell from the

boot slowly, one grain at a time, adding to the millions that quietly wait waking up in the

sunlight, the glow and the warmth.


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Eiffel

Sun shone down brightly onto the dock and into the back of her shirt and neck.

The hat she wore only created a faint shade. The dock faded in the heavy light and broke

apart from the years. Water swayed underneath in between the slats. Her feet hung off the

edge and moved with the lull of the water. He creaked along the dock behind her, his

arms concrete. She heard him and didnt move or say anything. He lumbered down to sit

next to her and she kept staring out. Concrete slowly melted from his arms and they

looked together.

Coda

Golden and glistening from the table lamp, it rested with mouthpiece against the

edge of the table, bell beveled and wide open to the floor. The three valves, newly

polished, awaited the fingers of the delicate man who sat beside it in his chair. Three-

piece suit, thick starched wool clung deeply to him as he sat comfortable snoozing. Light

knocks did nothing to wake him. He leaned back with feet crossed at the ankles. The

breath from his nostrils broke the calm silence of the room. He dreamed of a butterfly

garden with open grass and running rivers and wheat-colored light.

Three On A Match

He drew the shorter end of the broken matchstick and the wind blew hard to the

south. Hair was in his eyes but he readied himself anyway. They were in tall grass and

when he crouched down he disappeared. His friend first heard the scream before seeing

the top of his head pop up in the brush far away. His friend fell over laughing in the brush

clutching his stomach as he jumped up, now without a shirt, making guttural noises,

imitating the bears they saw on television.


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Next time I win a bet, youre going in the river! he yelled.

This is Not a Review

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